My Name is Khan opens with Asperger sufferer Rizvan Khan being pulled aside at the San Francisco airport and interrogated. The officer in charge, about to let him go, asks why he wants to see the President. With touching earnestness, and considerable irony, Khan replies that he has a message for him: "My name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist."
Karan Johar's latest venture is as different from his previous offerings as it is possible to be. US immigrant Rizvan (Shahrukh Khan) arrives in California, and falls in love with Mandira (Kajol), a single mother who works as a hairdresser. They marry, and for a while it looks as though the socially-crippled Rizvan has finally found his 'happy life' with Mandira and her son Sameer (Yuvaan Makaar). But in the wake of 9/11, Sameer is killed in a racist attack, and Mandira rages at Rizvan for being Muslim. She demands that he leave and Rizvan, who takes her at her word, begins tracking the President down so that he can deliver his message.
SRK describes the themes of the movie in terms of relationships: the Mandira-Rizvan story, an individual's relationship with Islam, and the citizen's relationship with his country1. Strangely, he also claims that the movie isn't about 9/11 or terrorism, but those are some of the strongest themes present in the film.
In fact, MNIK's main failing is that it tries to do too much within the scope of one movie. There's the Asperger aspect, which sets up the narrative of Rizvan's journey. Khan's and Mandira's love story and their Hindu-Muslim marriage are secondary, but important, themes. 9/11 and its impact on the Muslim community is, of course, a crucial component of the story, as is the good Muslim/bad Muslim thread. The Muslim community's relations with the United States is also explored. And as if that wasn't enough, another story arc focuses on a natural disaster in Georgia, serving as a reminder of Hurricane Katrina.
Some of these themes - like Khan's Asperger condition - work well. SRK delivers his best performance to date, capturing the awkwardness, facial tics, and random verbosity of an Asperger sufferer excellently. Shorn of his usual Bollywood persona, he creates a character who's unwittingly, but thoroughly, charming. The script, however, doesn't do justice to the issue - how exactly would Rizvan, lacking the most basic social skills, ever perform a salesman's job? His heroic efforts in Georgia leading a rescue team are equally implausible. Bollywood normally isn't fazed by this suspension of disbelief, but Karan Johar seems to be trying to make this movie fairly authentic.
Kajol is another strong point in the movie, as is her chemistry with SRK; years of anticipation as the pair reunite certainly paid off for the audience. Kajol's vivacity and sheer liveliness, as well as her grief and anger in the latter half of the movie, are highly believable. But again, the plot could've been a little better - as it stands, there's no indication that Mandira put any thought into marrying a man whose ability to interact with others is significantly worse than that of her pre-teen son. Watching the pair interact, it sometimes feels as though Rizvan is an adopted second son.
A couple of the other themes, though, could've been omitted entirely - like the mini-Katrina incident in Georgia. Whether it was to belabor the point that the government is faulty, or to add superhuman dimensions to Khan's character, the story arc was superfluous. What's worse is Johar's depiction of blacks. Mama Jenny is a loud, heavy, Aunt Jemima2-type woman who gives Khan a place to sleep, after which he joins her in an all-black church service where the worshipers break out into cheerful chorus. I'm not sure if Johar only intended to introduce comic elements, but this was bordering on the racist.
There are other concepts in the movie that chip away at its credibility, like the theme of "good" and "bad" Muslims. It is one that has already been done to death. But Johar sets up a highly contrived scenario where Khan helps apprehend a radical Muslim doctor, for which he gets melodramatically stabbed during his rescue efforts in Georgia.
Despite these issues, My Name is Khan is a good movie. It makes an honest and mostly successful effort at addressing the concerns of Muslims in a world that has become increasingly hostile towards them. It handles, with a surprising amount of sensitivity, the plight of an autistic human in our society. And it is, eventually, a movie about building relationships that are free of fear and prejudice.
Source: http://nazaronline.net/arts/2010/02/religions-and-relationships/
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